Tri – angle :
Studying basic shapes has always being fascinating for me as a part of geometry. There angles, intersections, theories, vector qualities have been so interesting. Even if you start thinking, whole education system revolves around them. From language, to maths, to science, to geography and history. Imagine you describing your newly made friend to your mom – “He is round faced, curly haired, sharp pointed nose…”, so on and so forth. Even the first scenery that maximum of us have drawn has the basic shapes of sun as round, hut as rectangle with triangle roof on top. So, what about writing about my favorite shape today – triangle.
What’s so special about this shape? Nothing much I guess just makes me remember the ice-cream cone filled with all my favorite flavors, or the arrow marks I see every day when boarding the elevator to my office / home. Even the chips have started coming in this shape for a change from that oval or round Pringles and Lays.
Maths fine, but you would say where does language comes as a user of triangle? Hey, the first alphabet you learned in school, “A”… followed by others like “V”, “W”, “X”. Great isn’t it even before we knew what these shapes were we started doodling them as alphabets. And what say if I take your memory a little further back to your toddler age when you tried to make castles with your block building toys / cards. In science just look at the symbols you use from marking a vector (physics), to the table of species according to food they eat… where happily we as humans sit right on top(bio) and organic chemistry bonds of hexagonal shape(hexagonal is a shape made up of basic triangle).
Archaeologically the great Pyramids, the Effile Tower, the Taj Mahal, The Pei pyramid etc are derived from the basic form of triangle. Even the Indian mythology talks about the “Tri-dev” placed in a form of triangle and the fertility symbol is a merger of two triangles.
Let’s see what history has in store for us when we talk of Triangle. We all are aware of the man of all times, with mysteries in his work yet to be solved, Leonardo Da Vinci. Many know him as a fine artist only. But, I consider him as a designer. Will talk about why, in some other blog entry. But for now let’s see how some great works of him just revolved around this basic shape – Triangle. Consider Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous and truly magnificent painting “The Last Super”, the one with various mysteries hidden. All the figures in the painting are actually made into group forming triangle, four triangles formed by the disciples of the Christ and the fifth is the Christ himself making the central triangle, pointing upwards (towards the Almighty). The mystery of triangle formed between Christ and his right hand side disciple is been highlighted in the bestselling novel “DA VINCI CODE” by Dan Brown. His other paintings like Mona Lisa, Madonna of the carnation are also forming triangle. The Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci continues on the same line of forming triangle.
Wait, am I not writing on a design blog… yes. So what’s all this science and old memories doing here? Guess its time to clear this jumble and start talking of design and triangle. So, let me take you again to whom I consider the biggest designer of all times – LEONARDO DA VINCI. The various angles of the triangle formed make’s it possible to make the focus points of the paintings stronger. His balance in each painting and sketch is maintained by the triangle formations by him. The Parachute design by Da Vinci is also a sectional cut of Pyramid (form derived from triangle). What say about the design of so many musical instruments forming the main form as triangle? The forms in many national flags are also made up the same form – Triangle. Even Indian national flag has spokes as we call them, graphically can again be considered as the triangles inserted inside the circle.
